Last Sunday afternoon was the annual medal presentation and dance, held at George Spencer Academy. Over a hundred dancers and their families and friends came along for an enjoyable afternoon of dancing, socialising and the tempting cakes made by the FROGS, all presided over by Boris of course.
The children treated the audience to a display of their work including dances such as the Waltz, Cha Cha Cha, Tango, Jive and Paso Doble. The older children and young adults next entertained with a montage of latin dances to music from The Greatest Showman and then Liam and Alex gave us a beautiful demonstration of a mix of Classical Sequence and ballroom.
As many of you will know, Alex will soon be departing for Australia, to work, for a while. We all wish her well but hope that she will return in the not too distant future. In recognition of Alex and Liam’s successful Amateur careers and their contribution to the school in terms of partnering and lessons, without whom we would not be able to take as many as we do to Blackpool, we decided that they were worthy recipients of the School Award for last year.
As always we had a raffle in aid of Cancer Research with many of the prizes generously donated. This year we raised £93, a great effort thank you.
All too soon the afternoon came to a close but hope everyone enjoyed themselves and we look forward to seeing you at an event soon
Following the Christmas break we were soon back into the swing of the competition programme once again and the team were out in force for the first ISTD qualifier of the year at Kettering. The weather was unusually mild and Boris and the gang had returned fresh from their holidays in Bearmuda, ready and eager to support the dancers.
Kettering is always a tough event, almost like a mini Blackpool so it is a good test for the dancers to face some challenging competition. Not only is the standard of dancing high here but so are the volume of entries and the children particularly have to undergo several rounds to make a final and even recalls are not easy to come by.
The children were first into action as usual and many were changing age groups this time. We also had a couple of newcomers to the team. Isobel and Grace S were dancing in the junior events for the first time, looking lovely in their new junior dresses, both did very well getting a recall. Chloe and Kaitlyn also moved into older age groups and along with Ellie all reached the semi-final of one of their events. April and Lewie joined us for the first time and again both did very well getting recalls. Jack did very well to make the final of his ballroom event being placed 5th.
The sequence events gave another opportunity to shine and once again our dancers were up to the challenge. Chloe finished 3rd in her event and Jack, Grace S and Paige all made the junior final, a great way to round off their day. Next came the adults and once again everyone performed well realising that they would need their A game today.
There were first places today for Olivia, Grace P, Carla and Sue in the Ballroom and Grace P, Serena and Carla in the sequence events. In the under 35 years sequence event, the top four places were filled by Grace P, Olivia, Molly and Charlotte B. Although many of the adult competitions were straight finals the standard of competition was still high and our dancers held their own against some excellent competitors.
Other notable performances today were: Molly being placed second only to Olivia in the ballroom, Andy’s 3rd place in his ballroom event, Chris’s second in both ballroom and sequence events and Sue who gave a solo performance in her latin (not an easy thing to do for anyone). Overall it was a good day’s work with many people picking up those vital qualification slips for Blackpool. We must of course thank the team of dedicated partners who partner everyone at these events; Luke, Ruth, and Liam (who was not well but carried on regardless) as well as those who partner alongside competing themselves; Grace P and Molly.
There are of course many more opportunities throughout the year and I am sure that those who didn’t make it this time will do so later on. Next we have the NATD medal presentation dance on 27th January so get your tickets soon if you haven’t done so already and then we have the next ISTD Qualifier on February 17th before our own competition on March 3rd. Plenty to keep us all out of mischief!
